An Old Book Dealer’s Cape Cod Hit List

Back when I was new to the Cape Cod Times library, I asked my dad — an antiquarian book dealer — to come up with a list of must-have books for my shelves. He was more than happy to comply and sent me this (listed in the order in which he wrote them down):

Seven Villages of Barnstable by the town of Barnstable and Louis Cataldo, 1976.
Eastham, Massachusetts 1651-1951 by Donald G. Trayser.
Nauset on Cape Cod: A History of Eastham by Alice A. Lowe (with an introduction by Henry Beston), 1951.
Blue-Water Men and Other Cape Codders by Katharine Crosby, 1946.
Collector’s Luck: Great Steps into Prehistory by Betty Bugbee Cusack, 1968.
One Hundred Years of Growing with Provincetown. First National Bank of Provincetown, Provincetown, Massachusetts, 1954.
We Chose Cape Cod by Scott Corbett, 1953.
The Cape Cod Canal by Robert H. Farson, 1977.
Where Land Meets Sea, the Tide Line of Cape Cod by Clare Leighton, 1954.
Cape Cod and the Offshore Islands by Walter Teller, 1970.
History of the American Whale Fishery by Alexandra Starbuck, 1989.
Once More the Thunderer by Henry Beetle Hough, 1950.
Mostly on Martha’s Vineyard, A Personal Record by Henry Beetle Hough, 1975.
Sou’West and By West of Cape Cod by Llewellyn Howland, 1947.
The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod by Elizabeth Reynard, 1962.
Martha’s Vineyard, A Short History by Eleanor Mayhew, Editor, 1956.

I believe this list included recommended titles as well as books he currently had in stock. Reading this list in his handwriting brings me back to childhood days when I accompanied him on book buying trips and clerked in my parents’ antique shop, The Incredible Barn, in East Orleans. Interestingly, it was Scott Corbett’s book, We Chose Cape Cod, that inspired my dad to move his family to Cape Cod in 1961. According to Google Books, this book is about “A freelance writer (who) describes his experiences moving from New York City to Cape Cod and how his family adjusted to small town life.” Although our family moved from Pennsylvania, this book could have chronicled my dad’s life perfectly. My dad, Wendell E. Smith, passed away in November, 2011 but his love for books remains with me, informing both my personal and professional life.

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Robin Smith-Johnson

Robin Smith-Johnson is the newsroom librarian at the Cape Cod Times. Cape Rewind looks at Cape Cod history. Read Full